


Before I leave, I want to try to go back in time

by hopefor46



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: Angst, LA era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 13:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13008813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefor46/pseuds/hopefor46
Summary: In Chicago, Tommy takes a detour.





	Before I leave, I want to try to go back in time

He wanted to do a huddle before the show, but Favs cut it on the grounds that it was “too lame, Tommy.” So he’s walking out onstage before he realizes he’s about to speak on the same stage where he and Dan once saw Elvis Costello and Bob _motherfucking_ Dylan, to a sold-out crowd of thousands, all of them eager to hear from him. Him and his best friends, trying to make sense of a world that hasn’t made sense since November.

He rubs at one eye, thinking about how his dad would feel to know about it. Lovett looks over and catches him doing it. His little smile and tender eyes warm Tommy all the way down.

It’s a great show, but the most draining they’ve done so far, between the gun-violence panel Tommy co-moderates with Dan and the extra-long Q&A session. The crowd’s enthusiasm wanders a little and he can hear people shifting in and out of their seats. At the end, he’s tired but giddy, restless. They fly back to California in the morning but until then there’s an errand he wants to do.

“Think I’m going to check out the old place,” he says to Jon as they’re putting on their sweatshirts. It’s a balmy night, it’s hardly necessary.

“Oh yeah?”

“You should come with. Might be nice to… have some time alone.” He knows how lame it sounds as soon as the words leave his mouth, but Jon doesn’t challenge him.

 

 

They’ve cleaned up the trains a little, Tommy notes, but they’re still not much to speak of.

  
“How are they still using cloth covered seats?” Jon says. “It’s disgusting.” Tommy leans out the window and watches the ground roll up under them. There’s a new stadium under the tracks, dewy and empty.

Tommy spent days of his life waiting on this platform, in the rain and the snow, blinking out against the too-bright morning sunshine. When was the last time he even took a train? As they clamber down the stairs his brain is whistling and his mouth can barely keep up.

“Wow, they put a Whole Foods where our old crappy grocery store was. Once we got back late and there were cars drag-racing down this stretch, Shomik almost got hit by one of them because he dropped his suitcase in the street. There’s the McDonald’s where Favs once ate 27 McNuggets in one sitting.”

“Tour guide! Tour guide! Some of us can’t keep up,” Jon huffs. Knots of undergrads pass them, oblivious to all but their own merriment.  
They reach the five-way intersection, roads spread out like fingers on a hand. Jon starts automatically crossing east and Tommy has to reel him in by the shoulders. Tommy saw a lot of bad bike accidents here.

“Over on that corner,” he winds up again, “used to be a big hospital, and it was really creepy and--”

“How long did you live here?”

“Ah--a year and a half, on and off. Off when I was on the road, you know. Wow, that’s crazy when I think about it.”

Rounding the corner onto Arbor, Tommy spots the house right away, a runt tucked back among giants. Under the streetlamps it looks like it’s painted the same sickly yellow. The tree in the front yard shot up and now threatens to swallow the street-side windows, including his old room. No lights are on. He stops short and Jon bumps into him.

“See,” Tommy says, bursting with the knowledge, “mostly it was the 6 of us crammed in there. For a while we had 8, the new scheduling guy slept on my floor--then he kind of took my room when I stayed at Katie’s--then I was on the top floor, right side, with the rattling window.”

“Katie live here too?”

“No, she stayed in DC longer, so she moved into the one over on Arthur by the dog park. Same deal but, like, cleaner because it was mostly women.” Jon opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, and closes it again. “One time, we had a potluck and had them all over, but Favreau set off the fire alarm and then the lasagna Shomik made turned out totally raw and--” He rests his hands on his knees and laughs. The look on Shomik’s face when he cut out a slice from the side and the meat was still half-raw.

Jon looks around warily. “Should we step off the street?”

“It’s fine, no one comes down here.”

“Right.” Jon looks uneasy.

Tommy feels like he can’t stand still. He’s practically in the yard now. The yard where he and Cody built an elaborate snow State of the Union podium, stuck in town over New Year’s Eve. In the summer someone would inflate a baby pool and they’d all take turns sitting in it on a rare Saturday off, drinking Goose Islands poured into Styrofoam cups. Their landlord had been mad about the scattered Styrofoam, hadn’t apparently noticed the water damage.

The day he moved out, mid-December.

Jon pats his shoulder. “Tommy, I’m tired.”

 

In the Lyft back to the hotel, Jon’s fingers press into Tommy’s thigh like he’s playing the same chord on a piano over and over. His touch burns through Tommy’s chinos.

When he does speak, Tommy can hear how hard he’s trying to keep his voice down. “Tommy... why did you ask me to go to the house?”

“Thought you would want to see it.”

Jon laughs empty, like a bark. “I mean. I don’t have the reverence for it that you do.” He should’ve taken Favs. Favs would’ve loved it.

“Makes sense. Fun to check out the ol’ shithole again though.”

“Don’t have that… history.” Here it comes, Tommy thinks, the thing he’s been turning around in his brain and is about to breathe life into. He lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

“Bet they haven’t bothered to renovate in 10 years. Just keep shoveling undergrads in.”

“Sounds romantic,” Jon deadpans.

“It was... really something.” Crammed into that house with a Red Sox flag on the wall and a milk crate full of books, Tommy thinks, working constantly, shop talk day and night, it’s never going to be like that again. He’s got his own yard now, even more of the trappings of adulthood, but feels like he left something buried back then that he yearns to recreate. Maybe it’s not normal. Jon’s sure not acting like it is.

“Wonder if we would even have been friends back then.”

“Don’t know that we wouldn’t.”

“I mean. The bro-ness.”

“Mmm.” Tommy hears the warning note creeping into his voice that says: drop it, but he can’t stop himself.

“Plus you were straight back then.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What? You were. I mean, pretty much, right?”

Tommy looks down, then out the window as North Avenue rushes past. “Don’t assume just because you had it difficult that everyone else had it easy.” He feels himself starting to blush and he hates it.

“What, sneakin’ glances at your boys in the house?”

He’s not that far off, but--“Jon, don’t fucking do that.”

“I wanna know.”

“We don’t--don’t need to go through it.” He can feel Jon furiously trying to catch his eye, but he won’t look up. Just stares stonily at his lap.

“We just went to the house! How is that not asking me to go through it?”

“I just wanted to see the old place. What the fuck did you think we were going to find?”

“I don’t know! A plaque reading Here Lies The Old Tommy Vietor, Who’s Never Gonna Leave You Even When He Could Have…” Jon hiccups, digs his fingers anew into Tommy’s thigh. _Hot hands, cold heart_ , he always jokes.

“Could what?” He sneaks a glance over at Jon, whose face is screwed up in a way he thinks is stoic.

“I just… I wanted to picture you, like in a certain way. It’s complicated.”

“Mmm,” Tommy says, distracted.

“Want to think that it was all for a reason.”

“Sure as shit didn’t feel like that at the time,” Tommy says, and as the words fall out he realizes it’s true.

For every afternoon playing pranks on the Arthur house were days and weeks of not knowing what the fuck he was doing. It was a stupid blur of eighteen-hour days and broken fax machines, cold pizza, his only days off when he caught bronchitis and Favs dragged him to the doctor. And every once in a while, a strike of lightning, the hope that it wouldn’t all be in vain, that it would really turn into something bigger.

And her. She would always be part of that story. They had taken the leap together, and it meant so much, but in the end it wasn’t enough. It took long enough for Tommy to forgive her, longer to forgive himself. But that’s not what Jon wants to hear, at least right now.

“You’re jealous,” Tommy mumbles as they hop out of the Lyft.

“No.”

“It’s okay.”

“You don’t get it.”

“I get it.”

 

Jon doesn’t even make a formality of going to his own room, just follows Tommy into his. (Tommy would have suggested they avoid the pretense altogether and just share automatically, but thanks to Twitter it became a team joke and he couldn’t bring himself to mention it. So the company can just pay for both.)

As the door swings shut, he pulls Tommy in by the waist, pressing his own back to the wall. His hands scramble up to yank him down, pulling at his shirt so he can kiss his neck and shoulder. When he reaches Tommy’s mouth it feels like sparks, like they might gnash teeth and fight like animals. He pants in Tommy’s ear like it’s unbearable that they have been orbiting each other all day without doing this.

He grabs Tommy’s ass, that’s uncommon.

“Jon, oh, Jon.”

“Shut up,” he snaps. He’s still angry, Tommy thinks. It could be anything. Jon claws at Tommy’s shirt so hard a button pops off. More hazards.

Tommy rests his hands on Jon’s shoulders and tries to gently pull him away from the door, but Jon takes control of that too. Underneath the blanket of his anger, Tommy sees a tiny light: he knows what Jon’s trying to do. He’s trying to goad him on purpose, so when they smash their bodies together there won’t be any room for any of these thoughts, just sensations.

It’s a bait Tommy would love to take but his heart is back behind him somewhere, dragging through the Chicago streets, maybe fallen into a pit somewhere.

Suddenly rebounding angrily off the door, Jon pushes him backwards through the room, back to where Tommy’s calves hit the bed hard and he almost loses his balance.

“Show me,” Jon says, then bites him where his neck and collarbone meet. Pounds his biceps with his fists. Tommy throws his head back, leans into the swoon. He’s so hard already, he can’t help how it makes him feel. But that only makes Jon angrier that he isn’t rising to the bait.  
“Tell me to get on the bed.”

“Get on the bed,” Tommy mumbles distantly.

“Make me,” Jon pants. “Make me, Tommy.” But he can’t complete the pass, another joke he would say to Jon if he didn’t feel so twisted around already. He runs a hand up Jon’s side with his nails featherlight.

“I know you want to,” Jon starts again. “Make me suffer for my crimes. For ruining your night.” Tommy applies his hands to Jon’s waist, soft, like a teenager at a dance.

Tommy would do anything for Jon, but he won’t put a hand on him anywhere in the neighborhood of real anger. He fears it too much.

Even more than dividing them from each other.

He nips at Tommy’s earlobe, which actually hurts. “Aren’t you gonna make me?”

Another Tommy letdown. The F stands for failure, he thinks miserably. He drops his hands. His “No” comes out partly sob. He ducks his head down so he doesn’t have to look at Jon, sits down heavy on the bed. Zeroes in on each of his shoes like one of them holds the answer. Why couldn’t they have been asleep already? It was all his stupid idea.

“Wait, wha--Tommy.” Jon advances to stand in front of Tommy, right between his knees. “Look at me.” Tommy feels sick but he doesn’t look. He can feel his traitorous eyes starting to water. Unlaces one shoe. Unlaces the other.

“ _Please_.” One of Jon’s hands comes down to rub the earlobe he just bit, so soft. His touch feels so tentative, like he’s waiting for a signal.

“Hey. Hey. No,” says Jon with a hint of panic. “No, this is--please, don’t, I--God damn it.” Only after he hears the wet sniffle does he look up and see Jon is on the verge of tears.

Jon kneels on the floor in front of Tommy, elbows to thighs. Brings his face close, holding it so gently. He brushes Tommy’s lips with his, like he’s looking for something in there.

  
“Tommy.” Tommy feels like he’s being imitated, but in the moment, he knows there’s nothing mean in it. For someone who takes his insecurities out on daily, frenetic parade, it’s a rare thing to see Jon actually pause and look unsure. “Say something.”

“Sorry.”

“Not that.”

Jon is terrible at saying he’s sorry, even when--especially when--he means it the most. The word springs unbiddenly to Tommy’s lips even when he doesn’t feel it at all. The night after the Lovett or Leave It show when he called him a boat shoe, they got into a terrible fight, and Jon clapped his fingers over Tommy’s mouth in mid-argument and said “Don’t ever fucking say it, unless you actually did it and you’re actually sorry.” His hand burned into Tommy’s face. He thought about it for days.

“Jon.” God, it feels so good to sigh his name and drop his shoulders, not to move, just to stay there. “Jon.”

“You know,” Jon said, “I’m supposed to be the one who can cry on cue.”

“Wasn’t on cue,” Tommy mumbles into his neck. He wishes his stupid eyes would stop leaking. It’s not that he minds Jon seeing him this way, it’s just fucking inconvenient.

“You can’t be the mess here. _I’m_ the mess.” It’s a classic Jon joke.

“How can you say that?”

“It’s all I can be.”

“No,” Tommy says, scooting back on the bed. “Nope,” as he folds the quilt back so carefully, then lies against the pure white sheets. “Not remotely,” he beckons to follow and Jon goes, still fully clothed, starfishing himself over Tommy. All heavy and warm and fighting for every inch.

“You know I’m just hot fuckin’ air most of the time.”

“Uh-uh.”

“All talk, no action.” Tommy doesn’t even answer, just kisses the top of his head, feels Lovett’s sweaty curls.

“Well that,” Jon says as he tries futilely to pull off Tommy’s shirt while still pressing down on him, “is absolutely fine.” The sight of him indignantly yanking at the shirt breaks the spell. Tommy leans up so slightly, raises his arms.

“Now yours,” Tommy says. Jon’s chest is warm and solid against him. He can’t get used to it. Everything seems so fragile these days.

“Can’t even bully you into bed right.”

“Mmmm.”

“Like it better when you do it anyway,” Jon mumbles. God, it feels so good to smile, even with so many questions.

He raises his voice, acting clueless. “Do what, Jon?”

“You know what.” Wrinkling his nose. Can’t admit to it.

“Oh, you can’t tell me? Okay. You’re gonna need to take your pants off now.”

Jon rocks up his hips clumsily as he wiggles his legs out, nearly kneeing Tommy in his rush. Drags his lips along his collarbone. Tommy shivers and feels himself starting to go breathless. His hips autonomous, grinding up into Jon. He didn’t realize he was doing it, but fuck it, it feels good.

“Are you just going to intimidate me like this, or are you going to fuck me?” Tommy smiles and rolls him over. Crawls back over Jon’s body to finish tugging his boxers off and gets a hand around his cock, then pauses right there, just to look. To admire. He’s earned this, for a moment.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Why are you smiling like that? What kind of ‘Titanic’ shit is--fuck, Tommy, your mouth, my God.”

 

Do they all look extra drawn in the morning light on the way to the airport, or is it just Tommy who feels like his eyelids won’t stay raised?

Favs notes a glance when Tommy sits next to him at the gate, across from Lovett, who acts extremely busy untangling his laptop charging cord. Tommy lifts his head to Favs, rolls his eyes fast like: we’re not gonna talk about this.

He gets up to wander around O’Hare in a daze, neglecting all the breakfasts he passes, finally pays too much for a banana because they’re supposed to be good for something. When he gets back there’s an Americano under his chair with “JON” markered on it.

He and Lovett end up sitting next to each other on the plane anyway, because Tanya probably put them together and he’s not going to ask to switch. Their third seatmate is a teenage girl who immediately goes to sleep against the window with her headphones on and iPad playing.

After takeoff, Jon theatrically stretches out all his limbs like a starfish, bumping Tommy on the arm and the leg playfully. Tommy sets down his copy of _Dark Money_ carefully, stabs in the bookmark. Double-checking the girl is asleep, he carefully lifts Jon’s thigh with both hands, sets it back in its proper place. Pulls down Jon’s tray table fast, like: stay put. But Jon catches his right wrist before he can pull it away, brings his hand to rest over Jon’s own on his thigh, under the table.

Tommy’s got his headphones in, playing the same playlist Dan once called “too depressing for Earth,” but when he catches Jon’s eye he can hear the words like they were spoken aloud: I’m sorry. I love you. He laces his fingers through Jon’s, knowing someone can probably see, feeling a weird peace about it. Jon goes to sleep warm on Tommy’s shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> This story essentially opens on [this Twitter video right here](https://twitter.com/PodSaveAmerica/status/917879074768293888) and then goes in an entirely fictional direction. Thanks for reading.


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